At the elite Catenan Academy, a young fugitive uncovers layered mysteries and world-changing secrets in this new fantasy series by internationally bestselling author of The Licanius Trilogy, James Islington. AUDI. VIDE. TACE. The Catenan Republic – the Hierarchy – may rule the world now, but they do not know everything. I tell them my name is Vis Telimus. I tell them I was orphaned after a tragic accident three years ago, and that good fortune alone has led to my acceptance into their most prestigious school. I tell them that once I graduate, I will gladly join the rest of civilised society in allowing my strength, my drive and my focus – what they call Will – to be leeched away and added to the power of those above me, as millions already do. As all must eventually do. I tell them that I belong, and they believe me. But the truth is that I have been sent to the Academy to find answers. To solve a murder. To search for an ancient weapon. To uncover secrets that may tear the Republic apart. And that I will never, ever cede my Will to the empire that executed my family. To survive, though, I will still have to rise through the Academy’s ranks. I will have to smile, and make friends, and pretend to be one of them and win. Because if I cannot, then those who want to control me, who know my real name, will no longer have any use for me. And if the Hierarchy finds out who I truly am, they will kill me.

A spellbinding story about two girls whose friendship is so intense it not only threatens to destroy them, it changes the trajectory of history. Marie Antoine is the charismatic, spoiled daughter of a sugar baron. At 12 years old, with her blond curls and her unparalleled sense of whimsey, she's the leader of all the children in the Golden Mile, an affluent strip of 19th century Montreal. Until one day in 1873, when Sadie Arnett, dark-haired, sly, and brilliant, moves to the neighborhood. Marie and Sadie are immediately united by their passion and intensity, and they attract and repel each other in ways that light each of them on fire. Marie with her bubbly charm sees the light and sweetness of the world, whereas Sadie's obsession with darkness is all consuming. Soon their childlike games take on a thrill of danger and then become deadly. Forced to separate, they spend their teenage years engaged in acts of alternating innocence and depravity--until a singular event unites them once more, with dizzying effects. And after Marie inherits her father's sugar empire and Sadie disappears into the city's gritty underworld, a revolution of the working class begins to foment. Each of them will have unexpected roles to play in events that upend their city--the only question is whether they will find each other once more. Traveling from a repressive finishing school to a vibrant brothel, taking readers firsthand into the brutality of factory life and the opulent lives of Montreal's wealthy, When We Lost Our Heads dazzlingly explores gender and power, sex and desire, class and status, and the terrifying power of the human heart when it can't let someone go.

Nebula, Locus, and Alex Award-winner P. Djèlí Clark returns to his popular alternate Cairo universe for his fantasy novel debut, A Master of Djinn Cairo, 1912: Though Fatma el-Sha’arawi is the youngest woman working for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities, she’s certainly not a rookie, especially after preventing the destruction of the universe last summer. So when someone murders a secret brotherhood dedicated to one of the most famous men in history, al-Jahiz, Agent Fatma is called onto the case. Al-Jahiz transformed the world 50 years ago when he opened up the veil between the magical and mundane realms, before vanishing into the unknown. This murderer claims to be al-Jahiz, returned to condemn the modern age for its social oppressions. His dangerous magical abilities instigate unrest in the streets of Cairo that threaten to spill over onto the global stage. Alongside her Ministry colleagues and her clever girlfriend Siti, Agent Fatma must unravel the mystery behind this imposter to restore peace to the city -or face the possibility he could be exactly who he seems…

Kübra Gümüşay beschreibt wie Sprache unser Denken prägt und unsere Politik bestimmt. „Ein beeindruckendes Buch, poetisch und politisch zugleich.“ Margarete Stokowski Dieses Buch folgt einer Sehnsucht: nach einer Sprache, die Menschen nicht auf Kategorien reduziert. Nach einem Sprechen, das sie in ihrem Facettenreichtum existieren lässt. Nach wirklich gemeinschaftlichem Denken in einer sich polarisierenden Welt. Kübra Gümüşay setzt sich seit langem für Gleichberechtigung und Diskurse auf Augenhöhe ein. In ihrem ersten Buch geht sie der Frage nach, wie Sprache unser Denken prägt und unsere Politik bestimmt. Sie zeigt, wie Menschen als Individuen unsichtbar werden, wenn sie immer als Teil einer Gruppe gesehen werden – und sich nur als solche äußern dürfen. Doch wie können Menschen wirklich als Menschen sprechen? Und wie können wir alle – in einer Zeit der immer härteren, hasserfüllten Diskurse – anders miteinander kommunizieren?

The apocalypse will be televised! A man. His ex-girlfriend's cat. A sadistic game show unlike anything in the universe: a dungeon crawl where survival depends on killing your prey in the most entertaining way possible. In a flash, every human-erected construction on Earth—from Buckingham Palace to the tiniest of sheds—collapses in a heap, sinking into the ground. The buildings and all the people inside have all been atomized and transformed into the dungeon: an 18-level labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot. A dungeon so enormous, it circles the entire globe. Only a few dare venture inside. But once you're in, you can't get out. And what's worse, each level has a time limit. You have but days to find a staircase to the next level down, or it's game over. In this game, it's not about your strength or your dexterity. It's about your followers, your views. Your clout. It's about building an audience and killing those goblins with style. You can't just survive here. You gotta survive big. You gotta fight with vigor, with excitement. You gotta make them stand up and cheer. And if you do have that "it" factor, you may just find yourself with a following. That's the only way to truly survive in this game—with the help of the loot boxes dropped upon you by the generous benefactors watching from across the galaxy. They call it Dungeon Crawler World. But for Carl, it's anything but a game.

In this lush and creepy young adult graphic novel about mental health, healing, and romance, a troubled teen suddenly disappears from his small town—sending his loved ones on a paranormal journey to save him from his inner demons.Noah is heartbroken. He returns from bible camp to find that Alex, his secret boyfriend, has had a breakdown and disappeared. He wishes more than anything that he hadn’t left that day.  Sky is determined. She’ll stop at nothing to find her childhood friend, even if it means alienating the people she loves.  Izzy is ashamed. She knew something weird was going on with Alex, and she didn’t say anything to her boyfriend, Jamie—Alex’s twin brother. If she had, would Alex still be here?  Jamie is angry. Angry at Alex for being gone, angry at himself for not noticing something was wrong, and angry at his long-dead mother, Desdemona, who had problems of her own. But what if there was something more to Desdemona’s demons than just mental illness? Why is Jamie seeing her ghost? And can he get past his hatred of her if it means finding out what happened to his brother?

For years Carmen Maria Machado has struggled to articulate her experiences in an abusive same-sex relationship. In this extraordinarily candid and radically inventive memoir, Machado tackles a dark and difficult subject with wit, inventiveness and an inquiring spirit, as she uses a series of narrative tropes—including classic horror themes—to create an entirely unique piece of work which is destined to become an instant classic.

Through the lens of horror—from "Halloween" to "Hereditary"—queer and trans writers consider the films that deepened, amplified, and illuminated their own experiences. Horror movies hold a complicated space in the hearts of the queer community: historically misogynist, and often homo- and transphobic, the genre has also been inadvertently feminist and open to subversive readings. Common tropes—such as the circumspect and resilient “final girl,” body possession, costumed villains, secret identities, and things that lurk in the closet—spark moments of eerie familiarity and affective connection. Still, viewers often remain tasked with reading themselves into beloved films, seeking out characters and set pieces that speak to, mirror, and parallel the unique ways queerness encounters the world. "It Came from the Closet" features twenty-five original essays by writers speaking to this relationship, through connections both empowering and oppressive. From Carmen Maria Machado on "Jennifer’s Body", Jude Ellison S. Doyle on "In My Skin", Addie Tsai on "Dead Ringers", and many more, these conversations convey the rich reciprocity between queerness and horror.

A subversive literary horror novel that disrupts the tropes of women’s historical fiction with delusions, wild beasts, and the uncontainable power of female rage. The year is 1901, and Ada Byrd ― spinster, schoolmarm, amateur naturalist ― accepts a teaching post in isolated Lowry Bridge, grateful for the chance to re-establish herself where no one knows her secrets. She develops friendships with her neighbors, explores the woods with her students, and begins to see a future in this tiny farming community. Her past ― riddled with grief and shame ― has never seemed so far away. But then, Ada begins to witness strange and grisly a swarm of dying crickets, a self-mutilating rabbit, a malformed faun. She soon believes that something ancient and beastly ― which she calls the grey dog ― is behind these visceral offerings, which both beckon and repel her. As her confusion deepens, her grip on what is real, what is delusion, and what is traumatic memory begins to fail. Ada takes on the wildness of the woods, and begins to wonder which is more dangerous: the grey dog, or herself.

THE CHURCH OF THE MOUNTAIN OF FLESH is a cosmic horror novel about mad artists, bodies spiralling out of control, and a trans man's merciless desperation. Sole De Gasinis drowns his grief in wine and buries his hatred of his body in twisted sculptures. When, one drunken night on the beach, God orders him to rebuild his village's church, he knows he wasn't chosen for his piety. Instead, he and God make a deal. If Sole rebuilds the church, God will give him the body of a man. As Sole works in a frenzy for salvation, lifelong friendships decay, a village united to tear down its church fractures into pariahs and zealots, and power and grief reshape the prophet into a tyrant. Grief for a boy he fell in love with ten years ago, who claimed to be a virgin birth, who died in agony in the church crypt when the God inside him wanted out -- and whose monstrous remnant Sole must commune with for every piece of his prize.

Two graduate students must set aside their rivalry and journey to Hell to save their professor’s soul, perhaps at the cost of their own. Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become one of the brightest minds in the field of Magick. She has sacrificed everything to make that a reality—her pride, her health, her love life, and most definitely her sanity. All to work with Professor Jacob Grimes at Cambridge, the greatest magician in the world—that is, until he dies in a magical accident that could possibly be her fault. Grimes is now in Hell, and she’s going in after him. Because his recommendation could hold her very future in his now incorporeal hands, and even death is not going to stop the pursuit of her dreams. Nor will the fact that her rival, Peter Murdoch, has come to the same conclusion.

Master spy Twilight is the best at what he does when it comes to going undercover on dangerous missions in the name of a better world. But when he receives the ultimate impossible assignment—get married and have a kid—he may finally be in over his head! Not one to depend on others, Twilight has his work cut out for him procuring both a wife and a child for his mission to infiltrate an elite private school. What he doesn’t know is that the wife he’s chosen is an assassin and the child he’s adopted is a telepath!

Once Upon a Time meets The Office in Hannah Maehrer’s laugh-out-loud viral TikTok series turned novel, about the sunshine assistant to an Evil Villain…and their unexpected romance. ASSISTANT WANTED: Notorious, high-ranking villain seeks loyal, levelheaded assistant for unspecified office duties, supporting staff for random mayhem, terror, and other Dark Things In General. Discretion a must. Excellent benefits. With ailing family to support, Evie Sage's employment status isn't just important, it's vital. So when a mishap with Rennedawn’s most infamous Villain results in a job offer—naturally, she says yes. No job is perfect, of course, but even less so when you develop a teeny crush on your terrifying, temperamental, and undeniably hot boss. Don’t find evil so attractive, Evie. But just when she’s getting used to severed heads suspended from the ceiling and the odd squish of an errant eyeball beneath her heel, Evie suspects this dungeon has a huge rat…and not just the literal kind. Because something rotten is growing in the kingdom of Rennedawn, and someone wants to take the Villain—and his entire nefarious empire—out. Now Evie must not only resist drooling over her boss but also figure out exactly who is sabotaging his work…and ensure he makes them pay. After all, a good job is hard to find.